when you had that third failure in a row mhm did you think I need to pack this in never why not I don't ever give up I mean I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated work like hell I mean you just have to put in you know 80 hour 80 to 100 hour weeks every week all those things improve the odds of success okay um I mean if if if other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you're putting in 100h hour work weeks then even if uh you're doing the same thing
you know that in in one year you will achieve what they achieve you you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve you need to work super hard so what what does super hard mean um well when my my brother and I were starting our first company uh in instead of getting an apartment we just rented a a small office and we slept on the couch uh and we we showered at the the YMCA and uh we're we're so hot up we had just one computer so the the the the
website was up during the day uh and I was coding at night 7 days a week all the time so briefly had a girlfriend in that period and in order to be with me she have to sleep in the office so I work hard like every waking hour that's that's the the thing I would I would say if if you particularly if you're starting a company and I mean if you do the simple math say like okay if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100 uh you'll get twice as done as much
done in the course of a year as the as uh the other company I think when I was I don't know five or six or something I thought I was insane why did you think you were insane because it was clear that other people did not their mind wasn't exploding with ideas all the time they weren't expressing it they weren't talking about it all and you realize by the time you were five or six like oh they're probably not even getting this thing that I'm getting no it was just strange it was like hm I'm
strange when I was young I I uh I didn't really know what I was going to do uh when when I got older um people kept asking me and and um but then eventually I thought that the idea of inventing things would be would be really cool and the reason I thought that was because um I I I read a quote from arth C clar which said that a um a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic and and that's really true um if you think if you go back say 300 years the things that
we take for granted today uh would be you you'd be burned at the stake for um you know being able to fly um that's crazy uh being able to see over long distances being able to communicate having um effectively uh with with the internet a a a group mind of sorts um and having access to all the world's information um instantly from almost anywhere on the earth um this is this is stuff that that really would be magic would be considered magic um in in times past in fact I think it actually goes beyond that
because there are many things that we take for granted today that weren't even imagined in in times past they weren't even in the realm of magic so it actually goes goes beyond that so I thought well you know if if I can do some of those things basically if I can advance technology then that that's like magic and that would be really cool you have to apply a lot of hours to actual working actually working so the way I generally do it is I'll be uh working at SpaceX on Monday and then Monday night fly
to the Bay Area spend Tuesday and Wednesday in the Bay Area then at at Tesla and then fly back on Wednesday night it's been Thursday and Friday at SpaceX um in in in the last several months then I I would fly back here on a Saturday um and either spend Saturday and Sunday at Tesla uh or spend Saturday at Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX I was living in the in the in the factory in Fremont um and and the one in in Nevada for 3 years straight it was my primary residence not not kidding literally
I actually stepped well stepped on a couch at one point on a in a tent on the roof um and then but but for a while there I was just sleeping uh under my desk which is out in the open in the factory um and and for an important reason and I was damn uncomfortable sleeping on that floor and I always when I woke up I'd smell like metal dust but actually I stopped using the couch in the in because there a little conference room in a couch there I stopped using the couch and I
just left on the floor under my desk so the so during shift change the entire team could see me if they think that the the sort of their leader is is off somewhere having a good time you know drinking my Ties on a tropical island which I could definitely have have been doing and would much have preferred to do but but the thing is that since the team could see me sleeping on the floor during shift change they knew I was there and that made a huge difference and then they gave it their role like
one of the most difficult choices I have ever faced uh in life was was in 2008 um and um I think I had uh maybe 30 million left or 30 or $40 million left in 2008 I had two choices I could put it all into one company and then the other company would definitely die um or split it between the two companies and but if I split it between the two companies then both might die and you when you put your Blood Sweat and Tears into creating something you're building something it's like a child and
so it's like which one am I going to let one star to death I can bring myself to do it so I put I I split the money between the two fortunately thank goodness uh they both came through were you a little naive when you thought I just I can easily build build an electric car and and a rocket I didn't think it would be easy um I like I said I thought they would probably fail um but you know like creating a company is almost like having a child so it's sort of like how
do you say your child should not have food so one once you have the company you have to feed it and nurse it and take care of of it even if it it ruins you yeah but uh Suppose there was some tough times in uh 2008 end of 2008 how did you get through that period of Crisis [Music] yeah can we just break for a second course well I mean Tesla really faced a severe uh thre threat of death uh due to the model 3 production Ram essentially the company was bleeding money like crazy and
and just if we didn't solve these problems in a very short period of time uh we would die uh and it was extremely difficult to solve them how close to death did you come we within single digit weeks 22 hours a day like what how many hours yeah so 7 days a week sleeping in the factory uh I worked every from the I work I work in the Paint Shop General Assembly Body Shop you ever worry about yourself imploding like it's just too much absolutely no one should put this many hours into work this is
not good people should not work this hard I'm not they should not do this this is very painful painful in what sense it hurts my hurts my brain and my heart you know there are American Heroes who don't like this idea Neil Armstrong Jean cernon have both testified against commercial space flight in the way that you're developing it and I wonder what you think of that I was very sad to see that um because those guys are yeah you know the those guys are heroes of mind so it's really tough you know I I I
wish they would come and visit and and see the hardware that we're doing camp and and I think that would change their mind they inspired you to do this didn't they yes and to see them casting stones in your direction it's difficult did you expect them to cheer you on soly hoping they would well for space SPX the first three launches failed and uh we just barely able to scrape together enough parts and and money to do the the fourth launch if that fourth launch had failed we would have been dead so multiple failures along
the way um I I tried very hard to to get the right expertise in for for SpaceX I tried hard to to find a great uh chief engineer for the rocket but it not the good Chief Engineers wouldn't join and the bad ones well there was no no point in hiring them so I ended up being chief engineer of the rocket um so if I could have found somebody better then we would have maybe had less than three failures how did you get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of a rocket ship company
um well I do have a physics background that's helpful as Foundation um and then I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of a lot of smart people you're selftaught yeah well well selftaught yes meaning um I didn't I don't have an aerospace degree so how how did you go about acquiring the knowledge well uh I like said I read a lot of books talk to a lot of people and and have a great team so many young people actually from across the globe if you have an advice to them young people
globally who want to be like El MK what's your advice on that advice I mean if you want to make progress in things I think that the best analytical framework for understanding the future is physics um I'd recommend studing studying the uh the the thinking process around physics like not just not not the equations I mean the equations certainly they're helpful but the the way of thinking in physics is the it's the best framework for understanding things that are counterintuitive and um and you know always taking the position that you're some degree wrong and your
goal is to be less wrong over time if you want to do things like me you you have to like learn how to be good at technology that's like so study engineering physics that kind of thing um understand how the world Works uh and uh and try to be as accurate as possible about that uh and then like I said also try to be creative which means just like try to think of of things that haven't been done before but that would probably make the world better and it I mean that's requires a lot of
mental effort to do that you know I don't just like come with stuff like will nilly um Ian occasionally but it's rare you really have to like think into your brain hoods that's basically if you haven't thought until your brain hoods then you haven't tried hard enough try to be useful um you do things that are useful to your fellow human beings to the world it's very hard to be useful you know are are you contributing more than you consume you know like uh try to have a positive net contribution to society um I think
I think that's the thing to aim for you know not not to try to be sort of a leader for just for the sake of being a leader or whatever I think it's important that you really like whatever you're doing um if you don't like it life is too short and and also if you if you like what you're doing you think about it even when you're not working I mean it'll just it's it's something that your mind is drawn to um and and if you don't like it you just really can't make it work
I think I think certainly uh being focused on something that you're confident will have high value to someone else um and just being really rigorous in making that assessment um because people are tend tend to a natural human tendency is wishful thinking um so a challenge for entrepreneurs is to say well what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking sticking to them versus pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have Merit and it's it's that is a that is a really difficult thing to to tell can you tell the difference between those
two things you know so you need to be sort of very rigorous um in your self self analysis generally starting a business I'd say number one is have a high pain threshold that's um there's a friend of mine who's got a good saying which is that starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss okay that's um that's generally what happens because um when you first start a company there's lots of optimism and things things are great and then so happiness at first is high then you encounter all sorts of issues uh
and happiness will steadily Decline and then you'll go through a whole world of hurt that's and then eventually you if you succeed and in most cases you will not succeed um and and Tesla almost didn't succeed came very close to failure um then if if you succeed then after a long time you will finally get back to happiness if if you're creating a company or if you're joining a company uh the most important thing is to uh is to attract great people so either be with join a group that's amazing that you really respect or
if you if you're building a company you've got to gather great people I mean all the company is is a group of people that have gathered together to create a product or service and so depending upon how talented and hardworking that group is and the gree to which they have focused uh cohesively in in a good direction that will determine the success of the company so do everything you can to to gather great people I one of the biggest mistakes people generally make and I'm guilty of it too is wishful thinking you know like you
want something to be true even if it isn't true um and so you ignore the things that uh you you ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true um this is a very difficult trap to avoid um and like I said certainly one that I find myself in having problems with but if you just take that approach of you're always to some degree wrong and your goal is to be less wrong and and solicit critical feedback particularly from friends like friends par friends if somebody loves you they want the best for
you they don't want to tell you the bad things um so you have to ask them care you know and said really I really do want to know and and then they'll tell you now is the time to take risk uh you don't have yeah you don't you don't have you don't have kids uh but but as you as you get older your obligations increase and once you have a family you start taking risk not just for yourself but for your family as well it gets much harder to uh do things that might not work
out um so now is the time to do that uh before you before you have those obligations so I would I would encourage you to take risks now do something bold um you won't regret it I I actually think I I I think I feel feel fear quite strongly um so it's not as though I just have the absence of fear I feel it quite strongly um but there are just times when something is important enough you've leav it enough that you you do it in spite of fear people shouldn't think I I I feel
fear about this and therefore I shouldn't do it um it's normal to be to feel fear like you'd have to there have to be something mentally wrong if you didn't feel feel fear um so you just feel it and let the importance of it drive you to do it anyway yeah you know actually something I can be helpful is fatalism uh some degree um if you just if you just accept the probabilities um then that diminishes fear in starting SpaceX I thought the odds of success were less than 10% um and I just accepted that
actually probably I would just lose lose everything um but that maybe would make some progress if we could just move the ball forward even if we died maybe some other company could pick up the vuon and move and keep moving it Forward um so that we're still do some good yeah same with Tesla I thought you the odds of a car company succeeding were extremely low there there are a lot of negative things in the world there's a lot of terrible things that are happening all over the world all the time uh there are lots
of problems that need to get solved there lots of things that are yeah that miserable and kind of get you down but that life cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another can't that can't be the only thing they need to be need to be things that inspire you that make you glad to be to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity that's why we did this this guy called t kovsky one of the early Russian rocket scientists the great saying Earth is the Cradle of humanity but you cannot stay
in the Cradle forever it is time to go forth become a starfaring civilization be out there Among the Stars expand the scope and scale of human consciousness I I find that incredibly exciting that makes me glad to be alive I I hope you feel the same way I mean your your net worth on any given day is rising or falling by several billion dollars how insane how insane is that yeah how do how do you handle that psychologically there aren't many people in the world who have to even think about that I I actually don't
think about that too much but the the the the thing that is actually uh more more difficult and and that does make sleeping difficult is that um you know every good hour uh or even minute of thinking about uh Tesla and and SpaceX has such a big effect on the company that I really try to work as as as much as possible uh you know to to the edge of Sanity basically uh because the you know Tesla is getting to the point where every good every high quality minute of thinking um is a million dollars
to to impact on on Tesla I want to hear what uh Elon has to say about how he takes risks I literally just try to use a scientific method frankly and you know what what is the importance of the outcome and what what what is one risking in in order to achieve that outcome and uh but like I said if the outcome is important enough even if the probability of success is low one must I think still still do it in my view um you know some things are very important and if to in order
to have a good future and if we don't do them well then we're in big trouble and so I and then then how much of a risk really is it because if we don't take those actions we won't have a good future um and I think the riskiest thing would be no action what keeps you up at night well it's quite hard to run companies yeah especially car companies I would say it's quite challenging the car business is the hardest one of all the things you do yes because it's a consumer oriented business as opposed
to like SpaceX and not that SpaceX SpaceX is no walk in the park but a car company it's very difficult to keep a car company alive it's very difficult you know there's only two car companies in the history of American car companies that haven't gone bankrupt and that's Ford and Tesla that's it what is the one thing that has surprised you about your life oh one thing wow well I certainly I'm surprised by the whole thing honestly I certainly didn't expect to be to be uh for any of these things to happen honestly I know
I wanted to be involved in technology um and uh in fact the only reason I started a company back in '95 an internet company was because I couldn't get it there were only a few internet companies and I couldn't get a job at any of them I tried to get a job at at Netscape um and sent my resume in and tried hanging out in the lobby but I was too shy to talk to anyone and and then I was like okay well I guess I'll have to start a company cuz I can't get a
job anywhere I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something which is fine like business is fine but um you know it's like it's facex uh gwin Shotwell is cheap operating off so she kind of manages um uh legal Finance um sales um um and kind of General business activity and then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team working on improving the falcon9 and the dragon spacecraft and developing the MOs Colonial architecture um and then at Tesla it's working on the model 3 and the you know sing
the design studio typically um have a a week um dealing with Aesthetics and and uh looking feel things and and then most the rest of week is just going through engineering of of of the car itself as well as engineering of the the factory um I I think if if you care about the reality of goodness instead of the perception of it philanth philanthropy is extremely difficult um SpaceX Tesla neural link Bing company are philanthropy if you say philanthropy is love of humanity um they are philanthropy there Tesla is accelerating sustainable energy this is a
love of of full anthropy SpaceX is trying to ensure the long-term survival of humanity with multiplan species This is Love of humanity um you know neuralink is is help solve uh brain injuries and uh existential risk with AI love of humanity Waring company is trying to solve traffic which is heal most people I encourage people to read a lot of books just read like basically try to ingest as much information as you can and try to also just develop a good general knowledge um so so you at least have like a rough lay of the
land of the the knowledge landscape um like try to learn a little about about a lot of things cuz you might not know what you're really interested how would you know what you're really interested in if you at least aren't like doing it peripheral exp exploration of broadly of the knowledge landscape and and you talk to people from different walks of life and different uh Industries and professions and skills and OCC occupations like just try you learn as much as possible I don't want to sound like like things are too dark cuz I think like
you kind of have to be optimistic about the future there's no point in being pessimistic it's just too negative doesn't it doesn't help you know I mean my theory is like you'd rather be I think rather I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right like what are the set of things that can be done to make the future better I think that a future where we are a space fairing civilization and out there Among the Stars this is very exciting this makes me look forward to the future this makes me want that future
there need to be things that make you look forward to waking up in the morning you wake up in the morning you look forward to the day forward to the future in a future where we are a space fairing civilization and out there Among the Stars I think that's very exciting that is a thing we want whereas if if you knew we would not be a space foring civilization but forever confined to Earth this would not be a good future that would be very sad I think I mean we got to be excited about the
future we got to do things that make us want to live you know it cannot always be about problems every day I mean do you want to wake up every morning everything's just a problem well what what inspires you and what makes you excited about the future there's got to be something things like that you know I put a lot of stock and certainly have a lot of respect for someone who puts in an honest day work uh to do useful things and and just generally to have like not a zero some mindset um or
or a like have have more of a grow the pie mindset when we see people like perhaps um including some very smart people kind of taking an attitude of U like like like doing things that seem like morally questionable it's often because they have at at a base sort of acatic level a zero some mindset without realizing it they don't realize they have a zero some mindset or or at least that they don't realize it consciously um and so if you have a zero some mindset then the only way to get ahead is by taking
things from others if the pie is fixed then the only way to have more pie is to take someone else's pie but this is false like obviously the pie has grown dramatically over time the economic pie so you really want to make sure you don't you're not operating um without realizing it from a zero some mindset where where the only way to get ahead is to take things from others then that's going to result in you take trying to take things from others which is not not good it's much better to work on uh adding
to the economic pie I think that a lot of times people think like creating companies going to be fun I would say it's not it's really not that fun I mean there are periods of fun and then there are periods of where where the store for and particularly if you see of the company um you actually have a distillation of all the worst problems in the company there's no point in spending your time on things that are going right so you only spend on things on your time on things that are going wrong and and
there are things that are going wrong that other people can't can't take care of so you have like the worst you have a filter for the craftst problem in the company the most pernicious and painful problem so I wouldn't say it's it's I think you have to feel quite compelled to do it and have a a fairly High pain threshold I think um if somebody is doing something that is useful to the rest of society I think that's a good thing like it doesn't have to change the world like you know um if you're doing
something that has high value to to people um and and frankly even if it's something if it's like um just a little game um or some improvement in photo sharing or something if it if it if it has a small amount of of good uh for a large number of people um that's I mean I think that's that's fine like stuff doesn't need to change the world just to be good but you know in terms of things that I think most likely to affect the the future of humanity I think AI is probably the single
biggest item in the near term that's likely to affect uh Humanity so it's very important that we have the Advent of AI uh in a good way that that uh is something that um if you if you could look into the cryst bable and and see the future you would like you would like that outcome because it is something that could go um could go wrong um as we've talked about many times um and so we really need to make sure it goes right what's your mission life why you do whatever you do when when
I was a kid I was wondering kind of what's the meaning of life like why are we here what's it all about and um I came to the conclusion that uh what what really matters is trying to understand the right questions to ask and the more that we can increase the scope and scale of uh human consciousness the better we are able to ask these questions so so I think that there's certain things that are NE Neary to ensure that the future is good some of those things are in the long term having long-term sustainable
transport and sustainable energy generation and to be a space bearing civilization and for Humanity to be out there among the stars and be a multiplanetary uh species being a multiplan species and being out there Among the Stars is important for uh the long-term survival of humanity and uh that's one reason kind of like life insurance for Life collectively Life as we know it um but then the part that I find personally most motivating is that it creates a sense of adventure and it makes people excited about the future well I mean my priority right now
is to try to add some more U management uh bench strength to Tesla in particular so that um I can take a vacation you know in the last 12 years I've only try to take a week off twice the first time I took a a week off the orbital science's rocket exploded and Richard Branson's rocket exploded in that same week second time I took a week off my rocket exploded the lesson here is don't take a week off you know my goal is like try to do useful things try to maximize the probability the future
is good um make the future exciting something you look forward to you know you know with uh you know with Tesla we like try to make things that people love how many how many things can you buy that you really love that really give you Joy so rare So Rare I wish there were more things that's what we're try to do just make things that somebody loves this may sound corny but love is the answer wouldn't hurt to have more love in the world I think people should be nicer to each other and give people
and give give more credit to others and don't assume that they're mean until you know they're actually mean it's easy to demonize people you're usually wrong about it people are nicer than you think give people more credit
